Black and White

22 June 2012, 13:42

Thinking how long it has been since I actually saw a black & white television, or even a black & white CCTV monitor, I was drawn into contemplating the increased visual depth we are being treated with of late. Although I do subscribe to the 1-bit life philosophy (http://www.news24.com/MyNews24/A-Life-Philosophy-for-Dummies-20120618) in many ways, we are no longer the victims of one-bit color (that being monochrome)... Even television was never that low-tech, but our computer monitors were orange or green or white (and black of course) until the early 80’s. Television was available in grey for a while (although termed “black & white”), and PC monitors also went that route for a while, until the VGA monitor became available in 16-bit color, then 32-bit, and eventually 48-bit! That gives us about the same level of color-differentiation as real life, and then some… which is why people go to the expense of purchasing Blu-Ray movies these days. But why do I have to go to so much detail on this technology?

Well, to be honest… Black & White is SOOOOO yester-year! It should have gone out of fashion with apartheid! In that case it just changed to “White & Black”. We are long past using this level of color-differentiation in our every-day lives, or are we? The entire world is polarized on the issue of black & white; people are legally classified according to their “race”: some are black and some are white (surely we are all just “human”?).

Of course, being children of the new age (sounding very NWO, but not meant in that sense), we are quite capable of coming to terms with color differences. We even have the Incredible Hulk (green), the Smurfs (blue), Bart Simpson (Yellow) and a bunch of other solid-colored creatures that our kids have fallen in love with. Why is it so difficult for us to see life in more than just black and white?

Think religion (and this is where my friends of dubious intelligence will go crazy again):

Is the Christian faith 100% correct? Are the Buddhists correct with all of their tradition and inspired philosophies? Are the Atheists correct in their beliefs (including that they are not a religion)? Are the Mormons correct in their polygamous tolerances? Even our president seems to support this one…. Is he a Mormon? It may well be that there are certain aspects of all of these (and other) followings that carry truth, and we as modern children of 48-bit color technology should be allowed to collect our inks from the palette of faith, mix them with tints from the jar of common-sense, and paint our lives as we feel they should be. Instead we fight about the different shades of our beliefs, expecting that our own narrow-mindedness will change the way other people think? Something about the world’s religions has definitely been lost in the way we go about trying to change people by force rather than by example.

Think love:

Is it not expecting a little bit much for our children of 24-bit color to know when they are in a life-long love relationship? If it were that simple, why do we have such a high divorce rate? We are constantly told to wait for true love to come along, but we have no ability to know when it is here; we think it is, but we are often wrong, and then we are told that we need to be honest about our emotions? Here it is, for those of you that think saying “I love you” means happily ever after: The color of the word “love” can have a thousand shades: we don’t know when it is pure (or when it isn’t) until we die. As an aside, the same can be said of the word “hate”… where hating somebody enough to kill them would be seen as the strong, but what about hating them enough to kill their children in front of them? Isn’t that a stronger shade? It is very concerning when we see such murders happening in our country (and yes it seems most such cases are on farms).

True love requires work. It may develop to its brightest by adding color on a daily basis, and can be more durable than any enamel paint, but so often fails. Surely we have the intelligence to realize that others could have been misguided in their declaration of eternal love? So next time your loving boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife decides they are no longer able to continue “loving” you: Get over It! You are wasting your time trying to change their minds at that late stage…. One or both of you has not done the required amount of work on maintaining that “paint job”. Use the time you would have spent in mourning to amend the points (if any) in your own approach that may have aided in bringing about the failure. Life is short: don’t waste it accusing the other person of trying to manipulate your emotions with “the L word”.

Think employment:

In an age when work is scarce and certain brighter shades of pigmentation are far less popular than in days gone by, it is easy to become despondent in a daily routine that barely pays for a house and a car, never mind the extra taxes and tolls. As a self-employed individual I often shake my head at the complaints of my friends that have jobs with stable companies. They always compare their work with their colleagues, seeking affirmation that they do more than their peers, take less time off and still get the same pay. Does this sound familiar? Once again we decide to use the black and white palette. Either we are happy and prosper or we are dissatisfied and complain.

However there are those few that do manage to get it right. They work and work, never complaining about their peers. They are happy to receive a minimum wage for their toils, and don’t go on strikes. Their assessment of their position in an organization is that they are a necessary rung in a ladder; not the most important, but a rung. They know their work could be better and they give their best, attempting to achieve that. These people are in the middle of the spectrum, adding shades and tints to their mundane existence, being part of the graphics device that provides the full picture. These people assist in building a good reputation for a company.

Why are the reputations of our big business so poor at the moment? Look at the picture in high-resolution: It is because we don’t have a natural progression from “bottom” to “top”. Our tints get frustrated while our shades are given top jobs. Our position in the picture seems to always be under threat. Some pixels are happy to be a single color whilst others compensate for the others’ lackluster performance, exhausting themselves in the process. (Also, the high-resolution movie machine has way too many components focusing on faces, books et cetera, and there is an annoying twitter in the soundtrack.)

Think government:

This is a dangerous point to dance around; in what way could we possibly assess our government in terms of color? They have professed to be non-discriminatory in any form, so all people should have opportunities in government and can obtain work from government. They of course support all colors equally, giving as much financial support to the squatters in Coronation Park as they do to those in Diepsloot.

In black and white terms, do you get a tender… yes or no? In color terms… the answer depends on how much of a bribe you are prepared to pay…. A few million colors are available for the amount.

So now that I have illustrated the point of being a child of 48-bit color, I think it better that I leave the rest to your own imagination: who knows where we could go in terms of morality, honesty, discipline….

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